by Victor Hugo
CHAPTER III.
JUNE 18, 1815.
Let us go back, for that is one of the privileges of the narrator, andplace ourselves once again in the year 1815, a little prior to theperiod when the matters related in the first part of this book begin.If it had not rained on the night between the 17th and 18th June,1815, the future of Europe would have been changed; a few drops ofrain more or less made Napoleon oscillate. In order to make Waterloothe end of Austerlitz, Providence only required a little rain, anda cloud crossing the sky at a season when rain was not expected wassufficient to overthrow an empire. The battle of Waterloo could notbegin till half-past eleven, and that gave Blücher time to come up.Why? Because the ground was moist and it was necessary for it to becomefirmer, that the artillery might manœuvre. Napoleon was an artilleryofficer, and always showed himself one; all his battle plans are madefor projectiles. Making artillery converge on a given point was hiskey to victory. He treated the strategy of the opposing general as acitadel, and breached it; he crushed the weak point under grape-shot,and he began and ended his battles with artillery. Driving in squares,pulverizing regiments, breaking lines, destroying and dispersingmasses,--all this must be done by striking, striking, strikingincessantly, and he confided the task to artillery. It was a formidablemethod, and, allied to genius, rendered this gloomy pugilist of warinvincible for fifteen years.
On June 18, 1815, he counted the more on his artillery, because heheld the numerical superiority. Wellington had only one hundred andfifty-nine guns, while Napoleon had two hundred and forty. Had theearth been dry and the artillery able to move, the action would havebegun at six A.M. It would have been won and over by two P.M., threehours before the Prussians changed the fortune of the day. How muchblame was there on Napoleon's side for the loss of this battle? Is theshipwreck imputable to the pilot? Was the evident physical decline ofNapoleon at that period complicated by a certain internal diminution?Had twenty years of war worn out the blade as well as the scabbard, thesoul as well as the body? Was the veteran being awkwardly displayedin the captain? In a word, was the genius, as many historians ofreputation have believed, eclipsed? Was he becoming frenzied, inorder to conceal his own weakening from himself? Was he beginningto oscillate and veer with the wind? Was he becoming unconscious ofdanger, which is a serious thing in a general? In that class of greatmaterial men who may be called the giants of action, is there an agewhen genius becomes short-sighted? Old age has no power over idealgenius; with the Dantes and the Michael Angelos old age is growth, butis it declension for the Hannibals and the Buonapartes? Had Napoleonlost the direct sense of victory? Had he reached a point where he nolonger saw the reef, guessed the snare, and could not discern thecrumbling edge of the abyss? Could he not scent catastrophes? Had theman who formerly knew all the roads to victory, and pointed to themwith a sovereign finger, from his flashing car, now a mania for leadinghis tumultuous team of legions to the precipices? Was he attacked atthe age of forty-six by a supreme madness? Was the Titanic charioteerof destiny now only a Phaëton?
We do not believe it.
His plan of action, it is allowed by all, was a masterpiece. Gostraight at the centre of the allied line, make a hole through theenemy, cut him in two, drive the British half over Halle, and thePrussians over Tingres, carry Mont St. Jean, seize Brussels, drive theGerman into the Rhine and the Englishman into the sea. All this wascontained for Napoleon in this battle; afterwards he would see.
We need hardly say that we do not pretend to tell the story of Waterloohere; one of the generating scenes of the drama we are recounting isconnected with this battle; but the story of Waterloo has been alreadytold, and magisterially discussed, from one point of view by Napoleon,from another by a galaxy of historians. For our part, we leave thehistorians to contend; we are only a distant witness, a passer-byalong the plain, a seeker bending over the earth made of human flesh,and perhaps taking appearances for realities; we possess neither themilitary practice nor the strategic competency that authorizes asystem; in our opinion, a chain of accidents governed both captainsat Waterloo; and when destiny, that mysterious accused, enters on thescene, we judge like the people, that artless judge.